Drink composed of fermented or acidified milk and citrus fruit juice

ABSTRACT

100 PARTS BY WEIGHT OF CITRUS FRUIT JUICES CONTAINING FROM 10-25 PERCENT BY VOLUME OF PULP MATERIAL ARE CONCENTRATED TO NOT LESS THAN ONE-THIRD OF THEIR ORIGINAL WEIGHT. The concentrated juice is mixed with from 5 to 40 parts by weight, based on the weight of the original juice, of fermented or acidified milk. The resulting drink can be homogenized and can include other ingredients such as sugar, acids, flavoring and coloring agents.

c 5 ilmte Staies Patent 1 1 3,764,710 Inagami et al. Oct. 2, 1973 [54] DRINK COMPOSED OF FERMENTED OR 1,610,962 12/1926 Mittendorf 99/59 ACIDIFIED MILK AND CITRUS FRUIT 2,824,804 2/1958 Mishima JUICE 3,563,760 2/1971 Kuwabara.....

1,925,441 9/1933 Finley et al. [75] Inventors: Kaoru Inagami, Tokyo; Isamu 2,818,342 12/1957 Ransom 99/105 Ykhamai Kamh FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS Tokyo, all of Japan 695,603 8/1953 Great Britain 99/59 [73] Assrgnee: Calpis Shokuhin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, Japan OTHER PUBLICATIONS 2 Filed; 17 1971 Cruess, Commercial Fruit & Vegetable Products,

1948, 3rd Ed., Pages 337-340, 364, 365. [21] Appl. No.: 172,561

Primary ExaminerMorris O. Wolk [30] Foreign Application Priority Data Assistant Examiner-Stephen B. Davis Sept. 12, 1970 Japan 45/79692 Attorneystevens Davis Mine & Msher [52] US. Cl. 426/185, 426/190, 426/206, [57] ABSTRACT 426/356 426/379 100 parts by weight of citrus fruit juices containing [51] Int. Cl A23c 9/12, A231 1/02 from 1045 ercem b volume of 1 material are 58 Field of Search 99/28,54, 105,205, P y J h 99/59 concentrated to not less than one-t 1r of t on Ol'lglnal weight. The concentrated JUICC Is mixed with from 5 to 40 parts by weight, based on the weight of the [56] kefe'ences c'ted original juice, of fermented or acidified milk. The re- UNITED STATES PATENTS sulting drink can be homogenized and can include 3,625,702 12/1971 Exler 99/54 other ingredients such as sugar, acids, flavoring and 2,890,961 6/1959 Davis 99/205 coloring agents, 2,724,652 11/1955 Brent et a1... 99/205 2,419,909 4/1947 Noyes 99/205 11 Claims, No Drawings DRINK COMPOSED OF FERMENTED OR ACIDIFIED MILK AND CITRUS FRUIT JUICE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION It is customary that the citrus fruit juices used for the production of drinks containing fermented milk or milk with added organic acid and citrus fruit juices are concentrated in advance to a weight of from one fourth to one sixth of the original weight for the purpose of improving their stability during storage of facilitating their handling.

Such concentrated fruit juices, however, upon being mixed with fermented milk or milk with added organic acid cause the coagulation and rapid precipitation of colliodal particles suspended in the fermented milk.

To prevent such coagulation, there have been hitherto proposed methods such as l. a method of adding a stabilizer, for example a paste material to the mixture,

2. a method of decomposing the pectin materials in the fruit juice by enzymes,

3. a method of demineralizing the calcium contained in the fermented milk. In all of these methods, however, consideration has been given only to the prevention of the precipitation and separation, and not to the preservation of the natural flavor inherent in the fruit juice.

According to our studies, it has been made clear that the poor flavor drinks of this sort usually results from unsuitable procedures of squeezing and concentrating fruit juices. In other words, when citrus fruit juices are concentracted to from one fourth to one sixth of their original weight, not only the large part of the pulp materials, but also the pectin materials are removed since they are gelled by concentration.

According to our studies, what gives a food flavor to the citrus juices is the body of the good quality pulp materials derived from the vesicle (juice cell) membrane. (This is apparent from the fact that home-made juices produced with a mixer have a better flavor than the usual commercially produced fruit juices, even though the former is mixed with a considerable amount of water.) Thus, it is natural that concentrated fruit juices have little flavor of the original fruit juices, since the large part of the pulp materials has already been lost.

Further, in the case of mixed drink of fruit juices and fermented milk, decomposing or removing the pectin materials by enzymes treatment or other treatments was effective for the purpose of preventing coagulation, but not for retaining its flavor.

In order to solve such problems and to produce drinks containing nearly the same amount of the pulp and pectin materials as the original juices, the pulp materials which have been separated beforehand by pulpers or finishers or the like can be returned to concentrated fruit juices. Even with this method, however, the flavor is greatly deteriorated because of high concentration. Moreover, not only does the use of the concentrated juices exert an inhibitory action on the dispersing property of the pulp materials, but also the method necessitates a very complicated treatment upon remixing.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of producing drinks containing citrus fruit juice and fermented milk or milk with added organic acid in which the coagulation and separation liable to occur upon mixing is prevented. This is achieved by concentrating parts by weight of the original citrus fruit juice containing from 10 to 25 percent by volume of the pulp materials composed mainly of vesicle membrane to not less than one third of their original weight, and mixing the resulting concentrate with from 5 to 40 parts by weight of fermented milk or milk with organic acids added.

The drink thus obtained shows an excellent flavor in comparisonwith others on a 1 percent level of significance by sensory evaluations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION We have established a method of producing a drink with a rich flavor in spite of containing fermented milk or milk with added organic acid and citrus fruit juices, the juices having been concentrated by entirely different methods from that of the conventional methods of producing concentrated citrus fruit juices. Care is taken concerning the denaturation of the pectin materials which exert a large influence on the coagulation and separation of the product, and after concentrated juices and fermented milk are mixed, the mixture continues to be stable for a long time without the addition of any special stabilizer. I

The production of the concentrated citrus fruit juices used in this invention and the addition of fermented milk will now be described more fully:

1. Citrus fruits, after being peeled, are squeezed by the chopper-pulper method or the in-line extractor method, and the content of the pulp materials of the squeezed juices is adjusted to from 10 to 25 percent by volume of the pulp materials composed mainly of vesicle membrane of good quality. Then the juice is brought to the preparation step for concentration, without removing the pulp materials by a finisher or the like. The citrus fruits mentioned above are Citrus Unshiu orange, Tangerine orange, Mandarine orange, Valencia orange, Navel orange, Summer orange, Grapefruits, Citron and Lemon.

2. In the preparation step, the following procedures are carried out: the deaeration treatment for preventing the loss of flavor and the decomposition of vitamin C, the heat treatment for inactivating pectinase, and the homogenizing treatment for finely crushing the pulp materials.

3. In the subsequent concentration step in which the vacuum concentration or the freeze-concentration is applied, the concentration ratio must not fall below one third by weight. Thus, concentrated citrus fruit juices with a rich flavor deriving from good quality pulp materials are obtained.

4. To the concentrated citrus juices obtained in Step(3), the fermented milk or other milk with organic acids is added in an amount of from 5 to 40 percent by weight calculated on the basis of the original fruit juice weight, and sucrose, organic acids such as lactic acid, citric acid, malic acid and fumaric acid, food coloring's, food flavorings, antioxidants, antiseptics, condiments, reinforcing additives (for example vitamin C), carbon dioxide, purified water and so forth are added as required. Thus, a citrus fruit juice drink which contains fermented milk is obtained. Then a high pressure homogenizing treatment (for example, l50kg/cm may be sometimes applied to the above process.

EXPERIMENT l Unshiu orange (Satuma orange) juice, concentrated to l/2.5 by weight and containing the good quality pulp materials, and other fruit juices were used as. the raw materials for preparing fermented milk-containing fruit juice drinks. The sensory tests and measurements of coagulation were performed on each sample. The results obtained are shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1 No. Sample Pulp materials content l 0.3 8 Unshiu orange juice cone. to 1/5 by weight 2.

Pectin materials content 0.060

Sensory value (ranking 1 3 average) month months 3 l -lll- 4-H- Coagulation Unshiu orange transparent juice conc.

to 1/5 by weight 3. 14.8 0.138 3.05 Unshiu orange juice cone. to US by weight (with the pulp materials added) 4. 14.8 Unshiu orange juice cone. to

by weight 0.073 Unshiu orange juice cone. to

112.5 by weight (free from the pulp materials) (Note) Sensory value: The sample No. 4, the product based on this invention is superior to others on a 1% level of significance. Coagulation:

No coagulation -Hl Extreme coagulation The amount of the pulp materials of each sample used in this experiment was volumetrically measured by the centrifugal separation method, and the amount of the pectin materials measured by Okimasus colloidal titration method. In each sample, the concentrated fruit juice was used so as to be 100 parts by weight calculated on the basis of the original fruit juice, and parts by weight fermented milk, 37 parts by weight sucrose, 0.4 part by weight food flavorings, and a small amount of citric acid and sufficient purified water to amount to 100 parts by weight in total are added. The acid content was adjusted with citric acid so as to be 1.20 percent by weight, and thereby the ratio of sugar to acid in each sample was kept same.

In the sensory test, all of five samples, after diluted five times, were simultaneously presented to the panel of 20 persons. The order or presenting samples was determined by the modified Latin square method and the evaluation was made by the ranking method. As the result of examining the ranking average by Kramers method, the sample which contains the Unshiu orange juice concentrated to l 2.5 by the method of this invention was found to have a superior flavor to others on a 1 percent level of significance.

The degree of coagulation was determined by observing the samples after storage at room temperature for three months. It was found out that there were no other samples which have a stability comparable to that of the Unshiu orange juice concentrated to l/2.5 by weight (the control) by the method of this invention.

From the above-mentioned results, the only sample that has a good flavor and remained stable without coagulation for a long time was the sample which contained the Unshiu orange juice concentrated to l/2.5 by weight by the method of this invention, and no other samples gained a good valuation both in the sensory value and coagulation.

The good flavor of the sample based on this invention can be attributed to the sufficient pulp and pectin materials which are the important elements of the flavor of citrus fruit juices, and also the low concentration ratio helps to prevent the pectin materials from denaturating and deteriorating.

The degree of esterification of the soluble pectin materials of the citrus fruit juices which were concentrated to not less than one third of the original weight by the method of this invention is in the same range of from 45 to 60 percent as that of the original fruit juice. However, a higher concentration than one third concentration, accelerates the coagulation, since the relatively increased acid content lowers the degree of esterification and then the pectin materials are decomposed to smaller molecules.

Furthermore, low concentrated fruit juices, which have a lower content of salts in comparison with highly concentrated juices, seldom become gelled, even in the presence of calcium or magnesium ions, or other divalent, or more than divalent metalic ions. And, even when the salts content is increased by adding fermented milk or other similar type of milk, the low concentrated fruit juices can be prevented from gelling and coagulating, because the high degree of esterfication prevents the soluble pectin materials from becoming the unsoluble pectin materials. Besides, since the juices are free from the pulp materials deriving from segment (loculus) membrance which has been removed by pulpers and/or finishers, no separation and denaturation are caused during storage.

The following experiment shows our studies of how much fermented milk can be successfully mixed, without addition of any suspending agent, for example a paste agent, with citrus fruit juice concentrated to not less than one third by weight.

EXPERIMENT 2 In this experiment, each concentrated fruit juice was used in an amount of 50 parts by weight calculated on the basis of the original fruit juice and mixed with certain amount of fermented milk, and the mixture was added with a distilled water so as to amount to 100 then subjected to the lactic acid fermentation at 37C parts by weight in total. Each mixture was put in a test for 16 hours. After the acidity as lactic acid was tube respectively, and was left to stand for 2 hours for brought to 1.8 w/v percent, the milk was homogenized observing the coagulation and precipitation. at 150 kglcm 5 To four parts of the above Unshiu orange juice concentrated to l/2.5 by weight, one part of this fermented milk, four parts of sucrose, and one part of purified wa- TABLE 2 ter, as well as a small amount of organic acids, food fla- Amoum of Fruitjuice Fnmjuice vormgs, and food colormgs, :vere added. The resulting fer me nteg milk concentrated concentrated 10 mixture was sterilized at 93 C for seconds to procacuate on to 1/5b t l/Sb the basis of Fruit juice Fmnjuice weight g vveight \{ith duce the fruit uice drink containing fermented milk. the original concentrated concentrated the pectin the pectin and fruitjuice to 1/2.5 by to 1/5 by materials pulp materials EXAMPLE 2 weight weight added added (0 11) (0 03) (0 H) (0 11) Fruit uice squeezed from summer oranges by an in- (714) 0:19 9 (7:4) 15 line extractor was adjusted to contain percent by 8 0 1 I l volume of the pulp materials. It was then deaerated and 20.0 i heat-treated under the same conditions as in Example 333 5 1. The juice was then vacuum-concentrated to one 50.0 third by weight at C and 20 mmHg to obtain the 60.0 20

M summer orange uice concentrated to one third of the original weight. On the other hand, lactic acid was stirred into sterilized skim milk so that the acidity as lactic acid in the skim milk became about 1.8 w/v per- In the table, the numerals in the upper and lower pacent. The milk was then subjected to a homogenizing rentheses show the content in percentage of pectin and 25 treatment at 150 kg/cm to obtain organic acids-added pulp materials respectively. milk.

As shown in Table 2, the fruit juice concentrated to Then five parts by weight of the above summer orl/2.5 by weight by the method of this invention was ange juice concentrated to one-third weight, 10 parts found to maintain its stability until as much as 40 parts by weight of the Unshiu orange juice concentrated to by weight of fermented milk are added to 100 parts by l/2.5 by weight in such a manner as in Example 1, five weight of the juice calculated on the basis of the origiparts by weight of the above organic acids-added milk, nal fruit juice. On the contrary, the fruit juice conceneight parts by weight of sucrose were added, as well as trated to US by weight became unstable even when organic acids, food colorings, food flavorings and so only a slight amount of fermented milk was added. Furforth, and purified water to amount to 100 parts by ther, even when the pectin materials (paste material) weight in total. The mixture thus obtained was suband the pulp materials are added to the fruit juice conjected to high pressure homogenizing treatment at 150 centrated to US by weight so that it may contain the kg/cm to produce the fruit juice drink containing sour same amount of the pectin materials and the pulp matemilk. rials as the above-mentioned fruit juice concentrated to We claim: l/2.5 by weight, the mixture became more coagulated 1. A method of producing fruit drinks comprising: than the sample containing the fruit juice concentrated a. concentrating 100 parts by weight of citrus fruit to l/2.5 by weight. This is because the low concentrajuices containing from 10 to 25 percent by volume tion in case of the fruit juice concentrated to l/2.5 by of the pulp materials composed mainly of vesicle weight prevents the pectin materials from deteriomembrane to not less than one-third of their origirating, but the stability of the colloidal particles of the nal weight, and added pectin materials has already been reduced, beb. mixing said fruit juice concentrate with from 5 to cause of its deterioration by the acid hydrolysis upon 40 parts by weight calculated on the basis of origiextracting the pectin materials even though the mixture nal fruit juice weight of fermented milk. contains the same amount of the pectin materials. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein said fermented The invention is further illustrated in the following milk is made from skim milk.

Examples. 3. The method of claim 1, wherein said fermented EXAMPLE 1 milk is made from reconstituted skim milk.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the mixture of the Pelled Unshu oranges were crushed by a chopper, fed said concentrated fruit juices and the said milk is hoto a pulper having the screen of 1.5 mm meshes and mogenized after mixing. squeezed so that the pulp materials content of the juice 5. A method of producing fruit drinks comprising: might be 15 percent by volume. The fruit juice was dea. concentrating 100 parts by weight of citrus fruit aerated under a reduced pressure of 17 mml-lg and at juices containing from 10 to 25 percent by volume 20C. The juice was then subjected to the heat treat- 0 of the pulp materials composed mainly of vesicle ment of 93C for 15 seconds. After cooling, it was submembrane to not less than one-third of their origijected to the high pressure homogenizing treatment at nal weight, and

l50'kg/cm The resulting fruit juice was concentrated b. mixing said fruit juice concentrate with from 5 to at 20C and 20 mmHg to obtainv the Unshiu orange 40 parts by weight calculated on the basis of origijuice concentrated to 1/2.5 by weight. nal fruit juice weight of milk with added organic Skim milk was sterilized by heating it at C for 15 acids. seconds. After cooling down to 37C, a 3 percent L. 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the milk with bulgaricus starter was added thereto. The milk was added organic acids is made from skim milk.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the milk with added organic acids is made from reconstituted skim milk.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein said organic acids are lactic acid, citric acid, malic acid and fumaric acid.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the mixture of the said concentrated fruit juices and the said milk with added organic acids is homogenized after mixing.

10. Fruit drinks containing in admixture:

a. fruit juice concentrate obtained by reducing 100 parts by weight of critic fruit juices containing from 10 to 25 percent by volume of the pulp materials composed mainly of vesicle membrane to not less than one-third of their original weight, and

added organic acids. 

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said fermented milk is made from skim milk.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein said fermented milk is made from reconstituted skim milk.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the mixture of the said concentrated fruit juices and the said milk is homogenized after mixing.
 5. A method of producing fruit drinks comprising: a. concentrating 100 parts by weight of citrus fruit juices containing from 10 to 25 percent by volume of the pulp materials composed mainly of vesicle membrane to not less than one-third of their original Weight, and b. mixing said fruit juice concentrate with from 5 to 40 parts by weight calculated on the basis of original fruit juice weight of milk with added organic acids.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the milk with added organic acids is made from skim milk.
 7. The method of claim 5, wherein the milk with added organic acids is made from reconstituted skim milk.
 8. The method of claim 5, wherein said organic acids are lactic acid, citric acid, malic acid and fumaric acid.
 9. The method of claim 5, wherein the mixture of the said concentrated fruit juices and the said milk with added organic acids is homogenized after mixing.
 10. Fruit drinks containing in admixture: a. fruit juice concentrate obtained by reducing 100 parts by weight of critic fruit juices containing from 10 to 25 percent by volume of the pulp materials composed mainly of vesicle membrane to not less than one-third of their original weight, and b. from 5 to 40 parts by weight calculated on the basis of original fruit juice weight of fermented milk.
 11. Fruit drinks containing in admixture: a. fruit juice concentrate obtained by reducing 100 parts by weight of citrus fruit juices containing from 10 to 25 percent by volume of the pulp materials composed mainly of vesicle membrane to not less than one-third of their original weight, and b. from 5 to 40 parts by weight calculated on the basis of original fruit juice weight of milk with added organic acids. 